


High-Functioning

by Sss_battlefront



Category: Dystopian - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 13:27:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3383267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sss_battlefront/pseuds/Sss_battlefront
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story I wrote for English</p>
            </blockquote>





	High-Functioning

My name is Kathan Waters. Currently I am waiting in a small room. I am sitting in a small gray chair. It is the only piece of furniture in here. The walls and floor are also gray. I have been waiting here since early this morning. In one hour I will be 18, which means that I'll be a High-Functioning and Productive Member of Society.  
I lived with my parents until I was six years old. I was very lucky to have them, they were great examples of what adults should be like. My father and mother both worked for the government like all the other parents; they filed documents written in languages they did not understand. No one but those higher up in the government should be able to read them. If someone else could then there was something Seriously Wrong with them. My parents were not like that. They had the same amount of vocabulary in the same language that those around them spoke. They had the same attitude and opinions as everyone else. They were not an ounce different. They were truly High-Functioning.  
I am a bit worried I will not be able to be a true High-Functioning and Productive Member of Society. I do not think Differently from others, but I was once friends with someone who did. I am worried people still remember that I was friends with her. Her name was Niely Jackson. I am afraid of ending up like her.  
Niely and I had been friends since we were sent to the Institution. We did not think the same way though. She was Different. Niely had always been vocal about it. She would never stop asking Unnecessary questions that were also completely Unproductive. She wondered why things were the way they were now; why people must all be the same. She thought everyone should be Different from each other. This is perhaps one of the biggest taboos in our world though.  
I left her when people started talking about us. More than one person came up to me and asked why I was friends with someone who was the complete opposite of High-Functioning. I purposely started drifting from her. I stopped talking to her almost completely when we were both 16, but I when I saw her I wished I still did. I do not know why. Perhaps I longed for her companionship, after all we had been friends for years, but it was too dangerous. After all, is not right to be Different.  
Last year, Niely got sent away. She was acting completely insane and becoming too rowdy. She tried to get me to help her organize secret meetings. She thought those in the government were the people in the wrong! I obviously refused to help, after all secret meetings only end in tragedy, but for some reason her face when I said no haunts me to this day. She glared at me and said I was no better than the government and I was a mindless sheep; I was only a shell of who I had formerly been. Despite these sharp words, her eyes were filled with loneliness and fear and I felt some emotion that I do not know how to describe. I know for certain that it was not happiness or anger. I would have thought it was fear or sadness for her, but I do not know how that is possible.  
The day Niely got taken away, we all knew it was coming. Announcements had been made that a troublesome student was going away to a Special Place to help her become High-Functioning like the rest of us. Niely sat all alone during breakfast. She did not eat anything, only pushed around the food on her plate. The bell rang for classes and everyone got up to go. Niely did not. She never looked up from her plate of food. That was the last time I ever saw her.  
I wonder why she did the things she did. I know we were very lucky to be living in this time period. We are all very lucky that the Institution exists now. I would wonder why she thought like that, but that would mean thinking Differently so I refuse.  
Back in the Olden Days, there were no Institutions! Kids usually lived with their parents and went to Schools. They learned things that did not always apply to them. The School system had been the same for ages despite technology becoming more advance and studies saying that things needed to be changed. Kids were expected to go to school, do hours upon hours of homework, do activities like sports, be social, spend time with parents, get eight hours of sleep, etc. Their workloads kept getting heavier and heavier and the adults in charge did not care. They said the students were lazy and should try harder and that when they were in school they could handle it. What those adults failed to realize is that things were changing. Changing for the worst for those students, but in the long run it was better for my generation.  
Kids started to become more and more overwhelmed. Not enough adults cared enough to help them. Kids started purposely hurting themselves as a way to cope. Suicide was becoming more and more popular. This brings us up to the time period where the Mass Hangings took place.  
Less than seventy years ago, the Mass Hangings began. They occurred for about a year, before the government changed and created the lovely Institutions. Kids decided they could not handle anything anymore. They arranged secret meetings and ended up sneaking into their schools in the middle of the night. On the walls of the cafeteria or auditorium, for some reason it was only one of these two places, they each wrote one reason why things needed to be changed. No reason was repeated twice in the same school despite at least seventy kids being resent during each event. After they wrote on the walls they all hung themselves on by one.  
The Institution showed us pictures when they were teaching us about this. I mostly remember how one girl that looked very similar to me was hanging there dead. Her face was extremely pale. Her eyes were bulging out, open and dilated. Her tongue was sticking out. It was dark brown almost black due to drying out in the air so long and her lips were blue. Saliva was dried down the side of her face, because her head was hanging down. Bloody froth from ruptured blood vessels escaped her nostrils and was dried above her upper lip. There was a large stain from the crotch of her pants, because of the release of urine and feces after her death. Her hands were clenched.  
I remember every detail of that girl. I could have been her if I had lived during that awful time. It made me even more grateful for the government for stepping up and creating the Institution.  
After the Mass Hangings started getting popular, at least one occurred at every school throughout the country. Older siblings encouraged their younger ones to do it, some parents killed themselves to end their grief, the year in which all this occurred was total chaos. People were screaming and crying for guidance.  
That is how the government we have now came to be. Most people in the former government were fired. I do not know much about this part as it was not explained in depth. All I know is that while it caused some outrage and revolts they were quickly suppressed. Once again I do not know how, but I am glad they were otherwise I would not be living in this Institution becoming High-Functioning. It is like Utopian heaven here and now, that's what everyone says anyway. So who am I to say anything Different?  
I hear my name being called. I get up from my seat in the small room I was sitting in. A door suddenly opens from my left side and I turn to face it. A tall figure dressed in a professional black suit with a mask stands in the middle of the doorway.  
"Are you ready to become a High-Functioning and Productive Member of Society?" He questions me in a very gruff voice. I eagerly nod in response, I am too choked up to make words. I am more than ready. As he leads me out the door, I can only think of how bright my future is shining.


End file.
